Marco J Nathan
Biographic Data
| ID | 3866054 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Marco J Nathan |
| GIVEN NAMES | Marco J |
| FAMILY NAME | Nathan |
| SIGNATURE | NATHAN M J |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Denver |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-3675-7465 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 10 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 30 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 10 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2012 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
The Quest for Human Nature
Science and philosophy have discovered quite a lot about humans. The emergence and development of biology, psychology, anthropology, and cognate fields have substantially increased our knowledge about who we are and where we come from. The first half of this book provides an overview of key cutting-edge topics, from evolutionary psychology to contemporary critiques of essentialism, from genetic determinism to innateness. Nevertheless, these disco…
Rethinking ageing
Does anybody really know what time it is
Unificatory Explanation
Philosophers have traditionally addressed the issue of scientific unification in terms of theoretical reduction. Reductive models, however, cannot explain the occurrence of unification in areas of science where successful reductions are hard to find. The goal of this essay is to analyse a concrete example of integration in biology—the developmental synthesis—and to generalize it into a model of scientific unification, according to which two field…
The Future of Cognitive Neuroscience? Reverse Inference in Focus
This article presents and discusses one of the most prominent inferential strategies currently employed in cognitive neuropsychology, namely, reverse inference. Simply put, this is the practice of inferring, in the context of experimental tasks, the engagement of cognitive processes from locations or patterns of neural activation. This technique is notoriously controversial because, critics argue, it presupposes the problematic assumption that ne…
Mapping the mind
The Idealization of Causation in Mechanistic Explanation
Causal relations among components and activities are intentionally misrepresented in mechanistic explanations found routinely across the life sciences. Since several mechanists explicitly advocate accurately representing factors that make a difference to the outcome, these idealizations conflict with the stated rationale for mechanistic explanation. We argue that these idealizations signal an overlooked feature of reasoning in molecular and cell …
Development and natural kinds
Causation by Concentration
This essay is concerned with concentrations of entities, which play an important—albeit often overlooked—role in scientific explanation. First, I discuss an example from molecular biology to show that concentrations can play an irreducible causal role. Second, I provide a preliminary philosophical analysis of this causal role, suggesting some implications for extant theories of causation. I conclude by introducing the concept of causation by conc…
The Varieties of Molecular Explanation
Reductionists in biology claim that all biological events can be explained in terms of genes and macromolecules alone, while antireductionists argue that some biological events must be explained at a higher level. The literature, however, does not distinguish between different kinds of molecular explanation. The goal of this article is to identify and analyze three such kinds. The analysis of molecular explanations herein carries an important phi…
The Idealization of Causation in Mechanistic Explanation
Causal relations among components and activities are intentionally misrepresented in mechanistic explanations found routinely across the life sciences. Since several mechanists explicitly advocate accurately representing factors that make a difference to the outcome, these idealizations conflict with the stated rationale for mechanistic explanation. We argue that these idealizations signal an overlooked feature of reasoning in molecular and cell …
The Future of Cognitive Neuroscience? Reverse Inference in Focus
This article presents and discusses one of the most prominent inferential strategies currently employed in cognitive neuropsychology, namely, reverse inference. Simply put, this is the practice of inferring, in the context of experimental tasks, the engagement of cognitive processes from locations or patterns of neural activation. This technique is notoriously controversial because, critics argue, it presupposes the problematic assumption that ne…
Does anybody really know what time it is
Unificatory Explanation
Philosophers have traditionally addressed the issue of scientific unification in terms of theoretical reduction. Reductive models, however, cannot explain the occurrence of unification in areas of science where successful reductions are hard to find. The goal of this essay is to analyse a concrete example of integration in biology—the developmental synthesis—and to generalize it into a model of scientific unification, according to which two field…
Mapping the mind
The Varieties of Molecular Explanation
Reductionists in biology claim that all biological events can be explained in terms of genes and macromolecules alone, while antireductionists argue that some biological events must be explained at a higher level. The literature, however, does not distinguish between different kinds of molecular explanation. The goal of this article is to identify and analyze three such kinds. The analysis of molecular explanations herein carries an important phi…
Development and natural kinds
Causation by Concentration
This essay is concerned with concentrations of entities, which play an important—albeit often overlooked—role in scientific explanation. First, I discuss an example from molecular biology to show that concentrations can play an irreducible causal role. Second, I provide a preliminary philosophical analysis of this causal role, suggesting some implications for extant theories of causation. I conclude by introducing the concept of causation by conc…
The Varieties of Molecular Explanation
Reductionists in biology claim that all biological events can be explained in terms of genes and macromolecules alone, while antireductionists argue that some biological events must be explained at a higher level. The literature, however, does not distinguish between different kinds of molecular explanation. The goal of this article is to identify and analyze three such kinds. The analysis of molecular explanations herein carries an important phi…
Development and natural kinds
Causation by Concentration
This essay is concerned with concentrations of entities, which play an important—albeit often overlooked—role in scientific explanation. First, I discuss an example from molecular biology to show that concentrations can play an irreducible causal role. Second, I provide a preliminary philosophical analysis of this causal role, suggesting some implications for extant theories of causation. I conclude by introducing the concept of causation by conc…
The Idealization of Causation in Mechanistic Explanation
Causal relations among components and activities are intentionally misrepresented in mechanistic explanations found routinely across the life sciences. Since several mechanists explicitly advocate accurately representing factors that make a difference to the outcome, these idealizations conflict with the stated rationale for mechanistic explanation. We argue that these idealizations signal an overlooked feature of reasoning in molecular and cell …
Mapping the mind
Unificatory Explanation
Philosophers have traditionally addressed the issue of scientific unification in terms of theoretical reduction. Reductive models, however, cannot explain the occurrence of unification in areas of science where successful reductions are hard to find. The goal of this essay is to analyse a concrete example of integration in biology—the developmental synthesis—and to generalize it into a model of scientific unification, according to which two field…
The Future of Cognitive Neuroscience? Reverse Inference in Focus
This article presents and discusses one of the most prominent inferential strategies currently employed in cognitive neuropsychology, namely, reverse inference. Simply put, this is the practice of inferring, in the context of experimental tasks, the engagement of cognitive processes from locations or patterns of neural activation. This technique is notoriously controversial because, critics argue, it presupposes the problematic assumption that ne…
Rethinking ageing
Does anybody really know what time it is
The Quest for Human Nature
Science and philosophy have discovered quite a lot about humans. The emergence and development of biology, psychology, anthropology, and cognate fields have substantially increased our knowledge about who we are and where we come from. The first half of this book provides an overview of key cutting-edge topics, from evolutionary psychology to contemporary critiques of essentialism, from genetic determinism to innateness. Nevertheless, these disco…
Epistemology (10 works) · Philosophy (10 works) · Philosophy and History of Science (5 works) · Philosophy of science (5 works) · Computer Science (4 works) · Cognitive science (3 works) · Gene Regulatory Network Analysis (3 works) · Metaphysics (3 works) · Psychology (3 works) · Sociology (3 works)